Fitna ... Great PSYOP or Crap PD?

Having been intimately involved in the potential mitigation strategies for the release of this film I have to say now that I've seen it ... what a bloody let down. To tell you the truth the first-year crayon monkeys in any PSYOP Coy could have come up with something far more professional, authoritative and targeted.

Slicing together a shedload of YouTube clips with some dodgy graphics and a bit of open source music does not equal a hard-hitting explanation of the evils of Islam.

It also highlights just how hard it is to pick what the reaction of a few radicals will be (and then in turn what the reaction of the masses to those radicals may be). Admittedly Wilders bowed to a lot of pressure. He ripped pages out of a phone book and not the Koran, his Koranic quotes were areas that have been widely discussed and he didn't actually come out and say Islam was evil; he just talked around the fringes.

I'm not sure if I looking forward to something more dastardly ... the potential impact on my workmates in AFG could have been deadly. Having said that I'm definitely disturbed that the end result did not live up to the hype ... he created a lot of staff work we all could have done without.

What exactly was the point of this other than as a publicity stunt for Wilders?

To call it PSYOP implies some sort of goal beyond personal aggrandizement. Wilders is looking for some of that Hirsi Ali publicity and cash - unfortunately he lacks her looks and gender.

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Originally Posted by Spud

Having been intimately involved in the potential mitigation strategies for the release of this film I have to say now that I've seen it ... what a bloody let down. To tell you the truth the first-year crayon monkeys in any PSYOP Coy could have come up with something far more professional, authoritative and targeted.

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I know how you feel. This was just some crazy-assed politician, who appears not to have been able to afford crayons ... but enough about him, its worse in the present US administration.

The entire US Information Operations campaign against AQ has been a brain-dead and ideologically-based disaster made with soft, blunt scissors and tasty white glue paste ... sort of like this movie

My sister, a nurse and a devout Moslem, proposes more realistic options in changing Moslem minds about AQ than the entire NDI. Then trash like this comes out. The problem is huge parts of the military will buy off on this as "intelligence" about the threat! Yeesh! :rolleyes:

Funny story: I interviewed with a certain Pentagon contractor awarded an IO contract to be based in the ME. When I found I would be the ONLY westerner who spoke Arabic I asked, "How the hell do you know what the enemy is saying and if you're getting your message across?" They contract transcripts! Well it didn't matter as their IO campaign was targetted at, wait for it ... US Public consumption!!

When I asked about targeting my neighbors (I live in a ME country when not in NY or Iraq), they said "There are no contracts for it." :eek:

I am certain that I could take down AQ globally with just a fraction of a weeks operations costs in Iraq by destroying their reputation through Moslem nations and proper religious authority. But thanks to this film, my neighbors are boycotting Dutch products and the only Dutch guy I know has a South Africa flag sticker on his car for "protection."

We have to show the evils of AQ, not the imaginary evils of a billion people just trying to get on in life.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/imag.../picture_5.png

about the film is not the film itself but the reaction to it in the West and the Islamic world. The discussion on this site is intelligent debate about whether the film accomplishes its purpose and what that purpose is. But the debate prior to and after its release was shameful. Don't do this says the Dutch government because it will rile up the Muslim world - as indeed, it did. Its release provoked threats that caused LiveLeak to remove it for a while. Whether Wilders is in error or not should be the subject of debate, not whether he has the right to put forth his views. Attempting to cut off his free speech violates all the intellectual and political traditions of the West of which we are so proud. It is ironic that it is easier to find the old anti-Semitic Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, on the web than it was to dind Fitna.

JohnT

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Originally Posted by Abu Buckwheat

I know how you feel. This was just some crazy-assed politician, who appears not to have been able to afford crayons ... but enough about him, its worse in the present US administration.

The entire US Information Operations campaign against AQ has been a brain-dead and ideologically-based disaster made with soft, blunt scissors and tasty white glue paste ... sort of like this movie

My sister, a nurse and a devout Moslem, proposes more realistic options in changing Moslem minds about AQ than the entire NDI. Then trash like this comes out. The problem is huge parts of the military will buy off on this as "intelligence" about the threat! Yeesh! :rolleyes:

Funny story: I interviewed with a certain Pentagon contractor awarded an IO contract to be based in the ME. When I found I would be the ONLY westerner who spoke Arabic I asked, "How the hell do you know what the enemy is saying and if you're getting your message across?" They contract transcripts! Well it didn't matter as their IO campaign was targetted at, wait for it ... US Public consumption!!

When I asked about targeting my neighbors (I live in a ME country when not in NY or Iraq), they said "There are no contracts for it." :eek:

I am certain that I could take down AQ globally with just a fraction of a weeks operations costs in Iraq by destroying their reputation through Moslem nations and proper religious authority. But thanks to this film, my neighbors are boycotting Dutch products and the only Dutch guy I know has a South Africa flag sticker on his car for "protection."

We have to show the evils of AQ, not the imaginary evils of a billion people just trying to get on in life.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/imag.../picture_5.png

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Malcom,

Welcome back! Great blog post and deadly accurate.

best

Tom

Well at least someone is doing something about it :wry:

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Iranian Group to Produce Film in Response to Dutch Anti-Koran Film
Saturday, April 05, 2008

Stung by a Dutch lawmaker's graphic documentary depicting barbaric acts carried out in the name of Islam and the Koran, an Iranian film organization says it is producing a counter-documentary, "Beyond Fitna."

Iran's FARS news agency reports the film focuses on "orders given to worldwide Christians in the (distorted) version of the Bible for stoking violence, committing genocide, attacking others, beheading and burning women and children who have been taken into captivity."

The Iranian film announcement comes a week after far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders released his 17-minute film, "Fitna" in the Web.

The release of "Fitna" on March 27 sparked noisy protests from Islamic groups and leaders — some threatening Wilders with death — and the United Nations and several nations called for the removal of the film from video Web sites such as Google and YouTube.

FARS reports the film makers also will include segments on FOX News' Bill O'Reilly.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346961,00.html

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This will be a cracker!:D

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Stung by a Dutch lawmaker's graphic documentary depicting barbaric acts carried out in the name of Islam and the Koran, an Iranian film organization says it is producing a counter-documentary, "Beyond Fitna."

Iran's FARS news agency reports the film focuses on "orders given to worldwide Christians in the (distorted) version of the Bible for stoking violence, committing genocide, attacking others, beheading and burning women and children who have been taken into captivity."

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I wonder if they'll be using the King James version, or the Brick Testament...

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Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

I wonder if they'll be using the King James version, or the Brick Testament...

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overall love affair with cartoon propaganda my guess would be the latter:wry: